As of mid-2009, nearly all the world’s major aquifers were being overpumped. We have more irrigation water than before the overpumping began, in true Ponzi fashion. We get the feeling that we’re doing very well in agriculture—but the reality is that an estimated 400 million people are today being fed by overpumping, a process that is by definition short-term. With aquifers being depleted, this water-based food bubble is about to burst.
A similar situation exists with the melting of mountain glaciers. When glaciers first start to melt, flows in the rivers and the irrigation canals they feed are larger than before the melting started. But after a point, as smaller glaciers disappear and larger ones shrink, the amount of ice melt declines and the river flow diminishes. Thus we have two water-based Ponzi schemes running in parallel in agriculture.
And there are more such schemes. As human and livestock populations grow more or less apace, the rising demand for forage eventually exceeds the sustainable yield of grasslands. As a result, the grass deteriorates, leaving the land bare, allowing it to turn to desert. In this Ponzi scheme, herders are forced to rely on food aid or they migrate to cities.
Three-fourths of oceanic fisheries are now being fished at or beyond capacity or are recovering from overexploitation. If we continue with business as usual, many of these fisheries will collapse. Overfishing, simply defined, means we are taking fish from the oceans faster than they can reproduce. The cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada is a prime example of what can happen. Long one of the world’s most productive fisheries, it collapsed in the early 1990s and may never recover.
This article is an excellent read.
The water table is being overpumped.
The mountain glaciers are now growing so at least for now that is blooper.
Commercial ranches don’t normally overgraze. They know how many head of cattle they can grow and limit the number of cattle they run to stay inside the limit. Communal lands are commonly overgrazed.
The same for over fishing. When individuals are in charge of a resource they depend on they limit the catch to make sure they get that next catch but when it’s just a race to see who can catch the most the sea gets fished out. 90% of wild fish stocks are gone but then you get fastest reproduction and growth at maybe 80 to 90% at least with the species that can stand this sort of crap. Catches of many types of fish aren’t necessarily going down. I expect blue fin tuna to go extinct. One adult fish can be worth a new car. They take years to become adults and they are having a harder time finding food.
#30
“Other than Earth drying out and becoming Mars, *we* can’t kill the Earth.”
You are amazingly deficient in your science knowledge.
How would the Earth dry out? That’s an ignorant statement. Did you go to college?
First, water doesn’t escape the planet. It remains in the ecosystem. If water could escape the Earth biosphere, Earth would have become Mars-like millions of years ago. Water is recycled in the biosphere.
Second, the odds of a planet with 70% surface area of water drying up is silly.
Third, isn’t the consequence of “global warming” rising sea levels? How can BOTH the sea levels rise AND the world dry up?
I guess it’s people like you that vote in the elections and get us the morons that we call our elected representatives.
the problem comes as 2 things happen.
1. we are the TOP predator.
2. we are acting like MOLE RATS
MOLE rats have 1 main problem. Then ROT out their home and the main group DIES OFF.
They pollute their living section and DIE off.
Problems we have created.
Over population
Pollution, AIR, LAND, SEA..
When a predator OVER KILLS, the animals or OVER EATS a section of land it must FIND a new location to feed.
WHERE??
WE could keep adding and building and STAYING on this planet…but there is an END to it. and it wont be nice.
WE can TRY to explore…and get to space…and find another planet to DEVELOP what is here.
We are so far behind…WE SUCK..
we used to ALLOW idiots to DIE if they made a mistake..but we have advanced to the point we can RESURRECT them…
1. “Everything is wrong” – Moby
2. Soylent Green is people!
#28 – Hmeyers,
That article is a great read and some brilliant analysis.
Glad you like it.
But in biology they teach that everything biological is recyclable in the ecosystem. And so is water is the biosphere.
Yes. But this requires a functioning biosphere. Without one, we would need to purify every drop ourselves. It’s still here, yes, but harder to get into a useful state of cleanliness.
Doom and gloom is overrated, but you are very much correct that people should devote time to researching it.
1) Well, if you want to prevent or minimize the doom, you must study it.
2) Disasturbation – Wallow in it.
#33 – bobbo,
Sorry. I don’t have a link for that. I got it from the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Here’s a link to some current numbers of starvation.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35166
1 in 8 of the world’s population really does sound quite high to me. I’m sure it was a much smaller number before agriculture when the food was not locked up (also an observation from Ishmael).
However, I do not have a good link for this online. Sorry.
#34 – deowll,
The mountain glaciers are now growing so at least for now that is blooper.
Is this your idea of growing glaciers? Where’d you hear that?
http://tinyurl.com/n9fhat
Commercial ranches don’t normally overgraze. They know how many head of cattle they can grow and limit the number of cattle they run to stay inside the limit. Communal lands are commonly overgrazed.
Most cattle here in the U.S. go through CAFOs, the very model of unsustainability. I’m not sure what commercial ranchers you’re talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming
The same for over fishing. When individuals are in charge of a resource they depend on they limit the catch to make sure they get that next catch but when it’s just a race to see who can catch the most the sea gets fished out. 90% of wild fish stocks are gone but then you get fastest reproduction and growth at maybe 80 to 90% at least with the species that can stand this sort of crap. Catches of many types of fish aren’t necessarily going down. I expect blue fin tuna to go extinct. One adult fish can be worth a new car. They take years to become adults and they are having a harder time finding food.
When individuals are in charge, you get a tragedy of the commons every time. Only when regulations are in place, which are generally supported by the individuals concerned, will they not overfish or overuse whatever the common resource is. This is as it must be. People support the regulation because without it, they know that one of their neighbors will overfish so they must too. With regulation in place, they can relax and take fish at a more sustainable rate. So, yes, the people support such regulation, as a rule. But, no, in the absence of regulation, they will not trust their neighbors with their livelihood.
#35 – Hmeyers,
You’re correct, of course, that the water is not going away. However, water in the oceans is not drinking water without a lot of power input.
Further, what can happen (and what we must try to avoid) from global warming is that the seas become devoid of most multicellular life, as happened during the Permian/Triassic extinction. The ocean becomes too acidic for pteropods (a.k.a. sea butterfly) which form the basis of much of the oceanic food chain.
Also, the ocean conveyor stops (already 30% slower than it was) and the ocean does not get properly oxygenated. As the ocean becomes anoxic, sulfur producing bacteria take over. Eventually, they reach the surface and release Hydrogen Sulfide gas in toxic quantities thus spreading the ocean’s death onto land.
The P/T extinction 250 million years ago is the worst in the fossil record. It was caused by global warming (non-human caused, of course).
http://tinyurl.com/yhdf5d8
The article is fairly short and also throws in other information about medical uses of the knowledge of our planet’s H2S filled past. If it piques your interest in the subject of mass extinctions, check out a book called Under A Green Sky.
I do know the oceans have a higher plastic content than they should, for starters.
It doesn’t degrade very quickly so the oceans have nearly ubiquitous microparticles of plastic everywhere.
#41, Mr. Scott,
However, water in the oceans is not drinking water without a lot of power input.
Nor is ground water contaminated with trichloroethylene or chlorofluorocarbons. Or land contaminated with coal fly ash. Or native plant species pushed out by man made, invasive species that require man to plant every year.
#42 – Hmeyers,
I do know the oceans have a higher plastic content than they should, for starters.
It doesn’t degrade very quickly so the oceans have nearly ubiquitous microparticles of plastic everywhere.
Excellent deadpan humor on that … “doesn’t degrade very quickly” … ROFLMAO!! I love it.
Yes. It may not actually degrade in less time than it takes for the sun to engulf this once-beautiful, insignificant little spec on which we live. I’ve heard numbers on the order of hundreds of millions of years or possibly more (source: The World Without Us)
On the upside, like cellulose, another polymer formerly considered indigestible, a life form may evolve that can actually digest plastic. That’s really the one hope for getting rid of the stuff before the sun goes Chevy Nova on our asses. There is a lot of energy to be had for a species that evolves to digest the foul crap.
@ Misanthropic Scott
“a life form may evolve that can actually digest plastic. That’s really the one hope for getting rid of the stuff before the sun goes Chevy Nova on our asses. There is a lot of energy to be had for a species that evolves to digest the foul crap.”
Actually, in 100 years plastic will be the new “black gold”.
See in 100 years after all the oil is gone and we’ve burnt down all the trees, we’ll need something to keep us warm.
A smart caveman will catch a fish, pull the plastic bag it ate out of it and use it to start a campfire to cook the fish.
They will refer to these convenient fish + plastic bag combos as “Happy Meals”.
#46 – Hmeyers,
Stop it. That sounds way too plausible. You’re scaring me … or would be if I or any of my decedents (all 0 of them) had any chance of being around then.
@GetSmart-as i’d been saying way back in post #27.